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Monday, December 17, 2012

Movies: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I'd just like to point that I'm not crazy about the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I did thoroughly enjoy the movies. Well from what I remember at least, it’s been a while. So after the nine year wait (nine years already? Man…) The Hobbit finally graced its presence on the screen, and in select theaters, in 48 frames per second.

All movies up until The Hobbit were shot between 25 - 30 frames per second. With 48 FPS, it allows for a more fluid look of the film, almost lifelike, which takes a lot of getting used to. With the added clarity, at some points in the movie you can tell that the actors are on a set rather than a scene in a movie which kinda takes away from the feel of the movie. But with that all being said, you can still go see The Hobbit in regular 24 FPS in other theaters, which I might actually do.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tells the story of Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey and a band 13 Dwarves (Nori, Ori, Dori, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Bombur, Bofur, Bifur, Balin, Dwalin and their leader Thorin) who take on the quest of reclaiming the Dwarven land: The Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug.

Initially the movie was to be only two parts, but a few months before the release of the movie Peter Jackson had announced that it would be three films. I can’t say whether or not this is the best of ideas since The Hobbit is only one book compared to the LOTR trilogy.

But I think the whole reasoning behind this was the added back story of who's doing what at any given time and/or the development of the characters in this film. From what I was told, the dwarves were seen more as one entity rather than 13 separate dwarves.

I wasn't a big fan of the 48 fps, it seemed distracting and like I had mentioned before, it added another level of clarity in which you can tell when they were on a set and when they were on some landscape which kind of takes away from the film’s feel. But that being said, I somewhat got used to it, so visually, the movie was beautiful. It is exactly what you would expect of a Peter Jackson film.

The Hobbit is definitely a lot easier to follow than LOTR seeing as there aren't as many characters you gotta keep track of. LOTR, I got confused pretty easy. I should just rewatch those damn movies.

Some scenes in the movie seemed unnecessarily drawn out, like when Bilbo meets Gollum for the first time. But maybe it was necessary? I never read the books so I can’t say for sure. I'm just a guy who goes and sees movies.

Seeing as An Unexpected Journey was the first of three movies, this film was a good stepping stone to what we can expect in the next two. This movie introduced such characters as Smaug and the Necromancer, a man who can conjure the dead, both of which are played by Benedict Cumberbatch, you might know him from the UK TV show Sherlock or the bad guy in the new Star Trek movie, Star Trek into Darkness.

So should you go see it? Definitely, if you’ve seen all the LOTR films, you may as well keep the ball rolling. But if you do go see it, do yourself a favour and just watch it in regular 24 FPS. 48 FPS is pretty distracting.